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I am a fitness trainer with a passion for my own development and that of my clients. I am a friendly guy with a unique sense of humor. I have spent the last 11 years of my career researching exercise, and I want to share that information with you my viewers! Also if you want a new challenge in your fitness and are in the Medford N.J. area email me. I will get you to the next level!

One of my friends and co-workers wanted to increase her upper pulling power expressed in the chin-up. So we did some specific drills regarding this movement pattern. (Which, I will show you as this series progresses.) I loved her surprise and amazement as she achieved her fist and more chin-up in a matter of minutes. Now because she was already strong, she was able to apply her force to this movement. Some of you will be able to do the same as you apply this concepts’ others will have to build a some strength before you can and that is ok, just be ready to hit the bar! (Pull-up bar that is!) (If you haven’t read it yet, click here for part one.)

Now due to the nature of the chin-up and its primary movers the lats, a few things can happen in your body that won’t help your cause long-term wise. The first one of those issues is:

The rib cage flair or what we dubbed at the gym I work out of as, “The rib cage erection.” As I stated earlier because of the fact that the lats are the primary mover in this motion they have a tendency to pull back on the rib cage and bring you into spinal or lumbar extension and this is not the strongest position to be in. So your first step is to learn how to keep your rib cage down and abs engaged. Now that doesn’t mean the certain exercises that do have you extend are bad. But just that if you want to boost your pulling performance, you will need to not extend on your reps.

As you can see that these drills are anti-extension drills and train the abs to help you in your chin-up practice you will want to do these pretty frequently without going crazy. Now get to work on building your strength in these moves above and begin to apply them to your pull-up training and you may just get your first one before you know it!